An hour-long video published Saturday by Avid gamers Nexus, a YouTube channel centered on PC gaming {hardware}, accuses NZXT’s PC rental program of “bait-and-switch” ways, with costs and specs which can be always altering.
The Flex program permits prospects to lease prebuilt gaming PCs beginning at $59 per 30 days (not together with a mouse, keyboard, or monitor). However Avid gamers Nexus reveals that NZXT adjustments the specs and costs of PC fashions “day-to-day in some situations” and presents PCs with very completely different setups underneath comparable mannequin names relying on whether or not you need to purchase or lease. The quickly altering costs additionally obscure the potential worth of listed “reductions” because the packages shift forwards and backwards.
The video reveals one occasion of NZXT’s Player: Three PC listed as having an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous graphics card, together with an Intel Core i7-13700KF with the “purchase” choice chosen. Nonetheless, viewing the identical PC mannequin underneath the “subscribe” choice confirmed the identical processor with a much less highly effective Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti.
Regardless of the completely different GPUs, it mentioned NZXT listed each fashions as having the identical estimated frames per second in video games like Starfield and Name of Responsibility Trendy Warfare.
Avid gamers Nexus additionally highlights different components of the Flex program, just like the pricing scheme that leads prospects to pay more cash than merely shopping for a PC outright and “aggressive” phrases of service. The Verge reached out to NZXT with a request for remark however didn’t instantly hear again, and we haven’t seen a response posted in its neighborhood areas or social media channels.
“We simply assume this can be a rip-off at this level,” Steve Burke, the editor-in-chief at Avid gamers Nexus, says through the video. “The efficiency claims alone are massively deceptive, particularly for the reason that solely distinction in one in every of these that’s significant is the phrase ‘Tremendous,’ which lots of people — particularly those that are probably renting or shopping for a pre-built — received’t catch.”